But allowing you what never will be believed, at least what you never possibly can prove, that animal, or at least human happiness, in this life, exceeds its misery, you have yet done nothing:  For this is not, by any means, what we expect from infinite power, infinite wisdom, and infinite goodness.  Why is there any misery at all in the world?  Not by chance surely.  From some cause then.  Is it from the intention of the Deity?  But he is perfectly benevolent.  Is it contrary to his intention?  But he is almighty.  Nothing can shake the solidity of this reasoning, so short, so clear, so decisive; except we assert, that these subjects exceed all human capacity, and that our common measures of truth and falsehood are not applicable to them; a topic which I have all along insisted on, but which you have, from the beginning, rejected with scorn and indignation.

But I will be contented to retire still from this entrenchment, for I deny that you can ever force me in it.  I will allow, that pain or misery in man is compatible with infinite power and goodness in the Deity, even in your sense of these attributes:  What are you advanced by all these concessions?  A mere possible compatibility is not sufficient.  You must prove these pure, unmixed, and uncontrollable attributes from the present mixed and confused phenomena, and from these alone.  A hopeful undertaking!  Were the phenomena ever so pure and unmixed, yet being finite, they would be insufficient for that purpose.  How much more, where they are also so jarring and discordant!

Here, cleanthes, I find myself at ease in my argument.  Here I triumph.  Formerly, when we argued concerning the natural attributes of intelligence and design, I needed all my sceptical and metaphysical subtlety to elude your grasp.  In many views of the universe, and of its parts, particularly the latter, the beauty and fitness of final causes strike us with such irresistible force, that all objections appear (what I believe they really are) mere cavils and sophisms; nor can we then imagine how it was ever possible for us to repose any weight on them.  But there is no view of human life, or of the condition of mankind, from which, without the greatest violence, we can infer the moral attributes, or learn that infinite benevolence, conjoined with infinite power and infinite wisdom, which we must discover by the eyes of faith alone.  It is your turn now to tug the labouring oar, and to support your philosophical subtleties against the dictates of plain reason and experience.

PART 11